As a ‘Republican,’ Bloomberg’s Lead Over Thompson Shrinks

Michael Bloomberg’s lead over Bill Thompson dropped when he was identified as a candidate on the Republican line, according to a Quinnipiac poll released today.

Thompson trails Bloomberg 47 to 37 among city voters, compared to the 54-to-32 spread in Quinnipiac’s June 16 poll. In the earlier poll, Bloomberg was identified as “Bloomberg the independent.” In today’s poll, he was described as “running as both a Republican and independent.” Thompson’s identification did not change.

Bloomberg’s campaign spokesman dismissed the results as the byproduct of semantics.

“This shows that when you change the wording of any poll, no matter how good, you get a different result,” said Howard Wolfson. “The fact is NYers know that Mike Bloomberg is an independent who governs in a nonpartisan way, which is why roughly two thirds of New Yorkers consistently approve of his job performance and why he has double digit leads over both of his opponents.”

The biggest shift away from Bloomberg is among voters who identify themselves as independents. Independents, who previously supported Bloomberg over Thompson by 59 to 26 percent, now support the mayor by 49 to 27 percent.

There are still a number of problems for Thompson. While he has a 38-to-9 favorability rating, 52 percent of those polled didn’t know enough about him to form an opinion.

In the comptroller’s race, 55 percent of those polled say they don’t enough about the candidates to form an opinion. Among those who do, John Liu leads with 17 percent, followed by Melinda Katz with 10 percent, then David Yassky with 8 percent, and David Weprin with 5 percent.

In the public advocate’s race, Mark Green leads the pack with 37 percent, followed by Norman Siegel with 13 percent, followed by Bill de Blasio with 10 percent, and Eric Gioia with 7 percent.